


L'eau a coulé par-dessous les ponts

by blacklaces



Series: Café Alrededor del Mundo [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Aftermath of Colonialism, Angst, Author's intense love affair with coffee, Author's intense love affair with food, Character Study, Female Character of Color, Historical References, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mentioned: French Revolution, Multi, Post-Canon, Quynh & Booker's Excellent Adventure, The inherent confusion of the modern world, Vietnam, Vietnam War, Vietnamese Coffee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25492432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacklaces/pseuds/blacklaces
Summary: She doesn’t stay in France. It’s too close to England, too close to the oppressive weight of Cromwell’s tyranny pressing on her lungs, too close to the memories of Andromache-Honestly, the first one might be the worst.orQuynh and Sebastien in a Hanoi cafe.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Quynh | Noriko, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Quynh | Noriko
Series: Café Alrededor del Mundo [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1846708
Comments: 16
Kudos: 274





	L'eau a coulé par-dessous les ponts

**Author's Note:**

> L'eau a coulé par-dessous les ponts- Water flowed under the bridges

She doesn’t stay in France. It’s too close to England, too close to the oppressive weight of Cromwell’s tyranny pressing on her lungs, too close to the memories of Andromache- 

Honestly, the first one might be the worst. 

Booker’s apartment is serviceable for a recently disgraced immortal, but it doesn’t work for both him and her. Booker is French and, frankly, doesn’t want to leave France, but Quynh wants to go home- _home, home-_ and with what she's learned since her bloody reintroduction to the world, she figures he can deal. If anything, she can always just behead him; apparently the French like doing that. The idea of carrying his head around the world in a box makes her laugh softly. Booker, from where he’s sitting across the aisle from her in the plane, raises his head.

“Something amuse you? He asks. 

It’s new, this little duo of theirs. They dance around each other, trying to figure how they work with one another. Booker is wary around her, but makes overtures of friendship that Quynh reciprocates. 

“It’s nothing.” Quynh says. How do you explain to someone the idea of beheading them amuses you without the person in question taking offence?

He nods, before asking, “Why Vietnam, why Hà Nội? There’s nothing there for you.” 

_Not anymore._

Booker is a bitter man still healing from 200 years of living life as a dead man walking. Quynh thinks he might actually benefit from time away from Europe, if only he could see it himself. 

“It’s home Sebastien. Do I need another reason?”

“Last time I was in Southeast Asia I got blown up. Multiple times, Quynh.” he says, grimacing. He’s still uncomfortable around her but, Quynh thinks, after two centuries of him dreaming about her, he still prefers having her in eyesight. “Why not somewhere else, where I didn’t die? I’ve never been to Japan.”

Quynh looks out the window, over the vast expanse of ocean below her (always above her) and contemplates ignoring him. He’s a curiosity, this new companion of hers. The brief flashes of him she’s seen before, always during the brief time between drowning and dying, didn’t do him justice. Didn’t capture the weight he carries, the citrus of Grand Marnier that surrounds him, or the vividness of life that comes from a man who just wants to die. _Men,_ she thinks to herself _, need to just get over it._ Lykon, she remembers fondly, couldn’t brood if his life (ha) depended on it. 

Quynh thinks about reminding Booker that she spent 400 years in a box at the bottom of the sea, and even longer away from home. From what she’s gleaned from him over the weeks of their tenuous cohabitation, Booker’s life revolves around the country of his birth, and he’s never spent more than a decade away. She then thinks about the endless knowledge that the little black box, the cellphone, in her pocket contains, and what it’s given her. The first week out of the box, she almost died from exhaustion due to staying up reading night after night. 

“Sebastien,” She says with a shark-like smile, “I thought you Frenchmen loved Vietnam?”

Really, it’s a shame she spent that latter half of the second millennia out of action. She probably could have done a lot by just baring her teeth at people, based on the way Booker flinches when he looks at her face. She thinks she would have had fun throwing off the yoke of another regime from her people. Mentally, she still ranks the French behind Han, less than 100 years is nothing compared to 1000. She wonders, if she had lived, if tensions would have grown. If she would have held more loyalty to a place than to a singular person. As it stands, Booker helped when she could not, fought against his own countrymen when she could not, witnessed horrors inflicted that she can only imagine, and lived with guilt over what his people caused. She doesn't hold this against him. 

Understandably, Booker shuts up for the remainder of the flight. 

-

Understandably, Booker is the one most familiar with Vietnam now. Unlike Quynh, he’s at least been in the country post-Ming occupation. Quynh thinks back fondly on that little escapade. She spent most of the 15th century in Europe with Nicolò, Yusuf, and Andromache, but took a small break to come home and end that quickly. It was rather fun. 

Booker takes her down back alleyways to streets with no cameras that divide colonial style buildings and feats of modernity. The bustle of Hà Nội is a city that barely resembles the small settlement on the banks of the Red River that it first was. 

When it starts raining, the two seek refuge in a cafe that Booker spots at the street corner. The smell of coffee that assaults Quynh’s senses when they step into the confines of the cafe is almost overwhelming. She remembers the distinct smell of the grounds from when Yusuf first introduced it to her, a memory so sharp even 600 years hasn’t dulled it. Booker guides her to a table in the corner, wrought iron table and chairs covered with a fine layer of mist from the water splashing up from the pavement after being directed down by the awning that overhangs the furniture. _Monsoon Season_ , she thinks to herself. It brings a smile to her lips, it’s been so long since she was present for one.

It’s quaint, cute, this cafe. Papering over the walls are handwritten notes from previous customers, so numerous as to be three layers deep in some places. 

Booker, embarrassingly, has to order. Quynh’s accent is terribly unrecognizable, she doesn’t know what modern food is, and, worst of all for a 1500 year old woman who prided herself on being learned in an age where many weren’t, she can’t read the fucking menu. The global explosion of culinary traditions is nice, but life was a lot easier in the 17th century. 

As a consolation, Booker doesn’t seem to be able to read the menu either, ordering from memory without a glance to the board that dominates the wall behind the bar. Quynh feels slightly vindicated.

She feels slightly less vindicated when the server brings out two glasses with metal contraptions on top of them and pots of water with steam coming out the top. The apparatus is coffee related, she’s sure of it. Underneath the coffee scent is something else though, a note she’s unfamiliar with. Peering down into the glass, underneath what looks to be a filter that holds the coffee is a sweet-smelling cream substance. She looks up across the table to Booker with a questioning look in her eyes. 

“France, the French, actually it was a priest- something Nicky got a kick out of-, brought coffee to this country in the 1850’s,” he says, “the other thing in the grounds is chicoree. At first, chicoree was just a cheap filler made to stretch out coffee supplies during hard economic times in France; we drank it by the gallons during Napoleon's campaigns. Now though-” he waves his hand around in an all-encompassing motion,- “it’s tradition. France, Vietnam, even parts of America, they love their chicoree coffee. Even now, in times of prosperity, the chicoree remains.” 

He points to her glass next. 

“That’s condensed milk. It’s something new, only invented in the 1860’s.” His mouth twists into a facsimile of a smile, “The four of us first had it in America during the Civil War; it was great for rationing purposes. It’s milk, heated up and boiled down with sugar so it doesn’t spoil.” 

He takes a moment to thank the server when she comes back around with a plate of various pastries, Booker handing over enough money to cover the bill and then some. Booker has quite the sweet tooth, and he immediately picks up a macaron. Quynh, still unused to modern food, goes for the Banh Tieu instead. The sweet flavor of the fried dough blooms across her tongue, filling her with a comforting warmth. The motions of it all bring back memories long forgotten- Quynh, as a child, drinking hot tea and sneaking sweet treats from behind the backs of the adults with her girl cousins, all while the rains of the monsoon beat down outside. It’s amazing what you remember and what you forget after multiple centuries. She can remember the acts, but not the faces, the tastes, but not the names. 

Booker brings her out of her reverie by picking up the pitcher of boiling water and slowly pouring it into the filter. “This drink is called Vietnamese Coffee: chicory and coffee with condensed milk, brewed in a drip filter. It is, in my opinion, one of life’s great joys, second only to the French national team.” 

“National team?” Quynh questions. 

Booker looks up in brief shock, as if he’s forgotten that Quynh’s missed most of the modern era. 

“Football.” he says seriously. “Next time we’re in a place with a television, I am introducing you to football.” 

He sits back in his chair, watching Quynh as she watches the slow drip of coffee into the milk at the bottom of the glass. 

“So now that you have dragged me halfway across the world, and we’ve established introducing you to cà phê đá and the need to introduce you to football, can you please tell me what you plan on doing next?”

Quynh lifts the filter off the top of the glass, placing it gently in the ceramic plate to the side. Slowly stirring the drink, she contemplates what to say next. Booker was alone before she came, an outcast, but it’s clear he still cares for his friends and holds loyalty to them. She knows that his sentence is 100 years alone, but if she reveals too much, he could easily send a message to the group about what she’s planning. Alternatively, she does need him. She’s been alone for so long, and misery loves company. A shared burden is also easier than Quynh trying to do it all herself, but if he doesn’t know the full scope of the plan, he’ll be terribly ineffective in his help. She mentally flips a coin in her head. 

“Well Sebastien,” she starts, “First, you will show me this sport that everyone seems to love so much- I do need to become more acquainted with the current times.” 

He nods. 

“Second, I do need a companion. I don’t want to be alone.”

Unspoken goes the names of their former companions. Unasked in the question of _“why not go back?”_ Booker, for however different their lives have been, seems to understand Quynh’s pain, why she might not want to go back. His reasons for why she hasn’t revealed herself are probably wrong. Quynh has no desire to avoid a painful reunion, but is rather biding her time. She’ll let him continue under his incorrect assumptions for now. 

Booker minutely moves in his chair, his shoulders slightly relaxing. “And third?” he asks, a light cadence in his voice that sits at odds with how he previously carried himself.

He cares for Quynh, this woman who tormented his dreams for 200 years, but he stills holds himself apart from her, never forgetting that behind her calm facade is a pit viper. A prowling tiger, forever dangerous, a woman who spent however many years dying over and over and over again who didn’t escape unscathed.

Quynh sips her coffee. It really is quite good. She thinks later she’ll walk around the various markets and shops and pick up everything she needs to make it for herself. 

“Thirdly, Sebastien, you and I are going to burn this world down and start anew from the ashes. We will be the arbitrators, the justice, the keepers of the peace that this world needs. Humanity has run quite unchecked in its existence, and the proposed immortal keepers have not lived up to our purpose, don’t you agree?”

Booker jerks in his chair, knees bumping the table so hard that his coffee goes flying, shattering on the floor. Instead of looking at the shards of glass and the slow movement of coffee seeping across the floor, Booker looks at her with a dawning look of horror. 

“Quel?” He breathes out. 

Quynh takes another sip, her glass having survived what Booker’s did not. 

She imagines what could have been. But life took a different turn. She guesses that everyone all got what everyone deserved. Oh well, she thinks, bridges burn, live and learn. 

“It’s simple Sebastien. We will either be a family carrying out what the universe decreed- for what else is the purpose of an undying warrior- or, if they choose against me, Yusuf, Nicolò, _Andromache_ , and the new one can spend 500 years at the bottom of the ocean. Either choice will bring the necessary change in perception.”

Distantly, Sebastien le Livre realizes he’s fucked. 

**Author's Note:**

> Vietnam was nominally controlled by the Han Empire (or some form of it) until around 1000 C.E. In the 1000 years of occupation, multiple revolts took place, including the legendary uprising led by the Trưng Sisters. The kingdom was briefly occupied by China again during the Ming Dynasty, from 1407-1427. The country again came under foreign rule when the French occupied the peninsula as their Indochina colony in the 1850’s. During the colonial era, many aspects of french culture were imported into Vietnam, including coffee, certain foods, and words from the french lexicon. 
> 
> Coffee was introduced to Europe from Dar Al-Islam (the Islamic world) in the 15th century!
> 
> The cafe is loosely inspired by The Note Coffee, a cafe in Hanoi where patrons leave messages on sticky notes on the wall. The cafe serves traditional vietnamese desserts and french-style pastries. 
> 
> Banh Tieu is a traditional dessert eaten during monsoon season, and is similar to a doughnut. 
> 
> Vietnamese Coffee is the best thing in the world please try it if you haven’t already. 
> 
> A lot of this is drawn from my vietnamese family members but I am not vietnamese, so if there’s anything that needs correction, please let me know!
> 
> As always, find me on tumblr at [Blacklaces!](https://blacklaces.tumblr.com/)


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